


Gravity

by JennLynn77



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock - Fandom, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Apologies, Birthday Cake, Canon Divergence The Lying Detective, Comforting Sherlock Holmes, Confessions, Descriptions of Past Trauma, Developing Relationship, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Fix it TLD, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Important Conversations, Insecure John Watson, John Watson Whump, Kissing, Lots of dialogue, Love Confessions, M/M, Missing Scene, Profanity, Shitty Family, descriptions of violence, so much dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:33:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25675897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennLynn77/pseuds/JennLynn77
Summary: This story takes place during the moments we're not shown on screen after The Hug in The Lying Detective. I would like to think that something along the lines of what I've written here took place before they went to get Sherlock some birthday cake.“I wish I was better at this. You deserve better from me.”John had regained his breath, and the tears that he’d finally let fall in front of another person began to dry on his cheeks. His nose was red, and his eyes were still full. He sniffed pointedly in that way he has; an attempt to rein in all of the pieces of himself that he’d just let me see. John Watson: Always trying to hold himself together as he was crumbling to bits.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 30
Kudos: 171





	Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> I am American, so all mistakes in Americanisms-Britishisms are my own. I have no beta, so every mistake is mine. (Even after I ran Grammarly.) If something is glaring, distracting, or completely wrong, please tell me. (Kindly.)
> 
> I hope you enjoy! If you do, please press kudos. If you really liked it, I'd love a comment! If you bookmark, I love you!!!
> 
> I wrote this story for me. I've gone through all of what John mentions here, albeit colored by different circumstances. I wish I had a Sherlock to help me. I didn't/do not, so I made Sherlock do for John what I wish someone could do for me.
> 
> There are mentions of a dysfunctional family. If you could be triggered by that, please proceed with caution and stay safe!

**Gravity**

“I wish I was better at this. You deserve better from me.”

John had regained his breath, and the tears that he’d finally let fall in front of another person began to dry on his cheeks. His nose was red, and his eyes were still full. He sniffed pointedly in that way he has; an attempt to rein in all of the pieces of himself that he’d just let me see. John Watson: Always trying to hold himself together as he was crumbling to bits.

I released him from my embrace and raised my cheek from his hair. He lifted his head from my chest. “This,” I nodded and then waved my hands around ourselves, “was a wonderful start.” I smiled at him as best as I could. We were both a bit wobbly.

He lowered his head again at that. “I'm sorry that you saw that. That was pretty dramatic of me.”

I thought maybe it was time to talk. “John, did you see me while I was away? Like you’re seeing Mary?”

“Sherlock, I don't have the strength to have this conversation right now, okay?”

His evasion of the question confirmed my fear. He also did not remove himself from my arms.

“I'm so sorry, John. I'm so sorry I hurt you that profoundly. That was never my intention. I want to talk to you about that someday whenever you’re able. I don't think today is a good day for that, I agree with you.” I winced and wished, not for the first time, for John to be as unobservant as I always tell him he is.

John took two steps back from me. “Sherlock are you all right?” Even through his anguish, his doctorly instincts managed to surface. 

**_I mustn’t worry him_**. **_Try for aloof_**. “Would you mind if we sat on the sofa?”

John led me to the battered couch. “Can I get you anything? Are you due for a pain pill?”

He sat down and patted the cushion beside him in invitation. I sat beside him and let out a soft groan of discomfort. Out of the corner of my left eye, I could see him lower his head, focusing on the carpeting under his feet. 

As we sat side-by-side, I felt John's breathing slow down. He was also flaring his hands into fists as he calmed himself. To my surprise, after maybe a minute, he turned to face me, and tucked his right foot under his left knee and reached towards my face.

“Are you truly okay? Your eye still looks like it’s painful.” 

“It doesn't hurt anymore. It looks worse than it feels,” I lied. My vision was still a bit off, and the stitches itched like hell.

“Let me go get you some ice.” As the words left his lips, he continued to sit beside me and look at my eye, at the stitches that were still there, his body betraying his brain’s intent.

“Truly, John, I'm all right. But I think there may be something else going on here that needs to be said.” I stared at the coffee table and waited.

After a few moments of loaded silence, John gasped in surprise.

“I never apologized to you, did I?”

“For what?”

“Don’t do that.”

“What am I doing?” I had no idea that today was THE DAY. It was indeed my birthday.

“Just letting shit slide like that. You always do that when I do something hideous to you.”

“You make it sound as if you being hideous is something commonplace.”

“It happens a lot more than I’m proud of!”

That pulled my gaze to him. 

"I watched that video Mary sent to you. She told you to hurt yourself, to help me get over **_myself_**. I drove Mrs. Hudson’s car cross London to get to you, and all I could think of, was that I put you in the path of a predator. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for that. That I could do what I did to you in that morgue while you were hurting physically and mentally because of Mary told you to do. Because you care that much for me. You were slowly killing yourself, and it took a video, that wasn't even meant for me, to see what you were doing! I was so wrapped up in my own shit that I wasn't even willing to see what you were going through after Mary died. I know that you loved her, despite the way she treated you. And me.”

I inhaled a fortifying breath: “We are both guilty of doing some pretty abhorrent things to one another. I made you watch me step off of a building and die in front of your eyes. If anyone in this room deserves to never be forgiven for their transgressions, it would certainly be me.”

“This is not a contest!” John’s voice thundered around the flat. He took a measured breath and began again. 

“As I was speeding across the city to get to you, so many things flashed in front of my eyes. All the things you’ve done and said, things I’d never noticed before. Right before I found the DVD from Mary, Mrs. Hudson was giving Mycroft what for. She said something that tilted my entire perspective of our friendship. Our relationship. Everything you do for people, all the sleuthing, and the deductions, you do all of that because you care about people! You are one of the most emotional people I’ve ever met, but you hide behind ‘sociopath’ like it’s the only thing keeping you distant from the rest of us. Your emotions are what make you so magnificent. You could sit down at Scotland Yard and work on cold cases until you are old and grey, but you don’t. You say that you hate people, but you care about all of the people you help. And, until that moment over there with Mrs. H and Mycroft, I didn’t realise that of all the people you know, you have done the most for me.” He curled his hands into fists, and then determinedly straightened them both and laid them on top of his thighs. 

“I have done nothing to repay you. I’m such a shit. I punched you, kicked you. I didn’t even realise I’d not apologised to you until a few seconds ago! I look at you now and see the stitches on your brow. I see you withdrawing from whatever cocktail of drugs you were taking to get me to notice you weren’t okay.” He began to rock back-and-forth in a self-soothing motion, his disgust with himself on full display. As dismayed as I was to the whole of it, I was honoured that he’d let me see this side of him.

“I don’t know what this means, what I’m about to say, in the grand scheme of the world. With over seven billion people on this Earth. But. The man that you are? Is the man I need, John.”

I watched my words land, and John’s resolve crumpled.

"Christ, Sherlock!” John’s neck tilted forward as his body wilted and then he tipped toward me. I rearranged myself and mirrored his position on the sofa. I pulled him against me and he pressed his right ear to my chest. It seemed that holding each other was something we were going to do now.

“I don’t deserve your compassion.”

“You deserve every bit of it, John.”

“Do I?” I ran my right hand across and down and all around John’s back. Then John hit me with a nonsequitur. 

“I’m just like him.”

“Who? Who are you like?” I continued to rub his back and pressed my chin to his soft hair.

“My father. He was a shit, too.”

I pulled him closer to me. “Stop saying that. You’re putting me off.”

“Why is my family always shit?”

“I take an immediate and profound offense to that statement.”

John laughed against my chest at my pronouncement.

“I am reliably informed that you are part of my family, and I’ll not have you talking of me in that way. You may, however, speak as ill of Mycroft as you please.”

John sat up and looked at my eyes, disbelief all over his face.

“I am Godfather to Rosamund, am I not? I thought that immediately made us family, but I am also not good at those things. Haven’t had much practice, so please, do correct me if I’m mistaken.”

John’s eyes became overcome with that softness that I adore so much.

“Sherlock, of course you are. You are my family. And I hope I’m yours.

I nodded to affirm his statement.

“I didn’t, **_don’t_** , mean you. Never you. I just always seem to make shitty choices, especially when it comes to people I’m close to. My family: My parents, and Harry, I mean. Then, almost everything I did with Mary blew up in my face. Then when she died, I let Rosie down. She was never with me; always passing her around to Molly, Mrs. H, my neighbors... I was sitting in my flat drowning myself in whiskey while you were sat here thinking of the worst things you could do to yourself to get me out of what has to be my most monumental failure as a man and father. Everything is always my fault.”

“John, please don’t say such things.”

“I think I need to tell you some things. About my family. We don’t really talk about our pasts very much, do we? I avoid it at all costs in therapy sessions. It’s a well I’d rather not fall into, to be honest. But, we’re addressing some things here. And I think this is good. We normally don’t do this, but I think we should start.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you.” John sat back from my chest but was still facing me. I nodded for him to continue.

“I’ve always had a complicated relationship with my family. My father was a right bastard. Treated my mother and Harry like they were employees. Harry wasn’t home much as a result. My mother was a cook, and a maid, and his nurse. It never seemed to me that she was ever looked at as an equal in their relationship. He worked, she stayed home and did all of the house things. That arrangement continued long after he retired. He’d be sat in their living room, and she’d be all over the house fussing over everything. Just sipping at his tea, watching her. She always felt guilty if she wasn’t cooking, baking, or cleaning. Never took a moment to herself, at least none that I ever saw. Never mind how he treated me like I was a virus that wouldn't go away. There were times he looked at me like he wanted me to liquefy and slide through the floor.” 

I reached across the space between us and took John’s hands in mine. I squeezed them gently and tried to keep the tears that were forming in my eyes from falling. He was already struggling; he didn’t need me to make it worse.

He squeezed my hands in return and continued, as he watched me try not to cry.

“As I got older, I could see what was happening. The manipulation; the gaslighting. Would tell her to stop worrying, when she was clearly suffering from anxiety. Made fun of her if she got upset and cried about something. Yelled at her in supermarkets.”

I was unable to articulate a single word. I was only able to hold on to his hands as a few tears managed to escape. 

“She told me some of it. I saw enough on my own. He was always so angry. I watched him break two reclining chairs. Picked them up and threw them on the floor until the springs broke. He broke a faucet in our loo, too. I tried to tell her she deserved better. Told her when I got home from the Army, that she could live with me. She told me to mind my business. Their marriage wasn’t my business. She never understood how that hurt my feelings. My father figured out that I’d figured HIM out when I was about ten. I became the arsehole of the family. The black sheep. I’d hear them talking about me behind my back. Terrible things. I told them it hurt my feelings; they told me to stop spying on their conversations. It was always my fault.”

“You were just trying to help her escape him, John. That was an almost impossible situation. You were a teenager, your early 20s. There was only so much you could do for a grown woman who wouldn’t accept your help.” That didn’t seem to deter him.

“She’d flip-flopped on her opinion of him for decades. Every day, it could be something different. For the better part of my life, she rarely had anything nice to say to me about him. Most of it was telling me how he treated her abominably. She wouldn’t leave. No matter how bad it got. No matter how many times I told her she didn’t deserve to be treated the way he treated her. All I ever wanted was for her to have a happy, peaceful life.”

John’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

“The worst part? She died first! She never got to have any peace before she passed. He won, even in death. I see a lot of me in him. The moodiness. How mean I can be. The violence. I don’t want that for anyone who cares for me. I don’t want to be him. I hope you never see me the way I see myself.”

“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not perfect, John. Especially that brain of yours. I’ve told you before that you’re an idiot. I’m the genius of the two of us. Listen to me and tell your inner voice to shut the hell up.”

“I’m a cynical dick, Sherlock. I’ve been to therapy. You’ve met both of my therapists. I don’t know how to be happy, Sherlock. I’ve tried to let myself enjoy people, things, events; but I’m always waiting for the rug-pull. Nothing good in my life ever stays. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually been happy. I don’t know if I know what that actually feels like.”

“Except when you’re with me?”

“What?” John looked as though I’d thrown a glass of water in his face.

“You’ve seemed like you’re content with me on occasion.”

“Most of my memories of you and me continue to make me smile. There are a few I’d like to forget, though.”

“I think I’m similar to you. But I don’t look at it as cynicism. I find myself to be more of a realist. Most people you meet are by chance. What are the odds that you’ve actually met people that you’re supposed to be with for the rest of your life? Whoever said that to begin with? Maybe 2,000 years ago, when a human was lucky to make it to thirty-years-old. That made a ‘life partner’ much more plausible. People didn’t usually live long enough to have them hate someone enough to leave. Between the two of us, we’ve met thousands of people. I can’t stand 99% of them.” 

“Am I scared to be happy, Sherlock?”

“I don’t understand.”

“If you let yourself be happy, that’s a very vulnerable thing to let yourself have. If you like something, LOVE something, it can be taken from you. I don’t have much more to lose. Wow. I just heard myself say that out loud. I’ve never said that to Ella. Haven’t had the chance to say it to my new therapist. Probably would’nt’ve felt right to say that to anyone else but you. You are so key to my happiness, you know that?”

“I’ve noticed that about you, as well. I thought I was hallucinating it sometimes.”

“I’m the only one around here that’s allowed to hallucinate, okay?” We both laughed at John’s obvious attempt to lighten things up a bit. I can’t ever seem to let well enough alone.

“Is she gone?”

John sighed, knowing exactly what I meant.

“As soon as I said I want to be the man she thought I was, she told me to get the hell on with it, and then she vanished. And then you know the rest. Big, sloppy tears and a bit of snot. Sorry about your shirt, by the way.” 

“It’s all right. I’ve plenty of them.” John smiled. For the first time in a long time, he genuinely beamed.

“There’s so much wrong. But us? We’ve always felt right. Even when we wanted to throttle each other.” He raised an eyebrow at me. Evidently, John didn’t know that I occasionally wanted to strangle him. 

‘You are the only person who can break me, you know that? I’ve had a lot more experience with people than you. I’ve had my heart broken by quite a few people. But you…you are the one that can hurt me the most. Maybe that’s why I haven’t been able to say it to you, to tell you properly, how much you mean to me. How much I love you. Because I know you get bored. I’m afraid you’ll get bored of me and go. Change your mind, and see I’m not the conductor of light you thought I was. And I lived through that once, and that was a skin-of-my-teeth thing. I was barely holding on before you came back. I was trying to let go of you the day you came home. I went to your grave: I brought Mary with me. I told her things about you and me. She could tell I loved you. Never had to say it out loud. I’m glad I never told her. Your ears should’ve been the first to hear me say it. I love you. You’re a twat. Sometimes, I want to kick you in the arse, and sometimes I want to get your throat in my hands and give it a tight squeeze. But. All the time? I always want to be around you. I always want us to be together. And now? I just want to hug you and say I love you. And if you can deal with how fucked-up I am, I can deal with how fucked-up you are. And maybe we can try and be what we used to be.” 

It was time for me to toss a nonsequitur at him. “She doesn’t mean anything to me. Irene, that is. 

My John took it in stride. “She sure seems to text you a lot.”

“You just seem to be in unfortunate proximity when she does decide to check on me. She knows how I feel about you. How much I love you. She’s been encouraging. Told me to tell you. You’ve beaten me to it.”

John’s head tilted in that adorable way that some canines have. 

“I’m where I want to be. I’m not ‘missing anything’, as you stated earlier. If I felt that way for her, I’d have gone to her long ago. I’m here. With you. Surely that means something. Even if we never feel 'all right' again, we still have each other. We'll always try to make it better. Most times, we'll fail; but we'll always try. Because we love each other, John."

“We do, don’t we? Why don’t we ever say it?”

“Because we’re both afraid to be happy. Let’s stop that immediately.”

“Life just feels heavy sometimes, ya know? I can feel my entire life on my shoulders some days; gravity just having its way with me in that metaphorical sense. I’m so tired, Sherlock.” John turned back to facing the sitting room, but he slid closer to me and leant against my left shoulder. I got my arm around him and pressed a kiss to his right temple. Start slow.

“You can always ask me to help carry it. Whatever it is you’re carrying. I’m not very adept at sensing those sorts of things, but if you tell me, I’d like to help.” 

“I’m going to let you have a handle sometimes, all right?”

“I would love that.” We sat in silence for close to ten minutes; my arm around John’s shoulder, and his hair against my neck. John pushed his face against my bicep and nuzzled me before he spoke again.

“Let me go fix my face before we get you some cake.” I removed my arm from his shoulders and he stood up and stretched, and a loud pop sounded from somewhere in his body. He looked down at me.

“I have so much more to say to you; to tell you.” I stood and cupped his face in my hands.

“Christ, John. I should hope so. I’m quite looking forward to it.”

We winked in unison, and it was then that I knew that we were both on the path to the light that we’d both been searching for our entire lives. 

But, before all of that? Cake.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! If you did, please press kudos. If you really liked it, I'd love a comment! If you bookmark, I love you!!!
> 
> Come find me on Twitter https://twitter.com/ldystnly
> 
> ...and on Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/blog/johnyouareamazingyouarefantastic


End file.
